


gray

by skatzaa



Series: domestic Kendricks [4]
Category: The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Elements of the Festival, F/M, Future Fic, Old!Sean&Puck, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Puck POV, passing the torch, sort of introspective?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 14:21:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11315196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatzaa/pseuds/skatzaa
Summary: Sean and Puck get a visitor, years down the road.





	gray

**Author's Note:**

> This could be seen as an indirect sequel to Alright Then (my first ever tsr fic), and is a part of the domestic Kendricks series. It is not necessary to read any of the other to understand or enjoy this.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

PUCK

It has been a long time since I won the races. Dove is gone. Corr, too, has been released back into the sea to grow strong and healthy again. It has been so long since I last saw Gabe that he is as much of a memory as my parents. 

I wake, one dawn, to the early morning light streaming in through the window. It falls across our bed and makes the gray in Sean’s hair glow. I know there is gray in my hair as well, more than in his, really, but my heart hurts at the reminder that we are not what we once were. And then I think of all of our years together, the things we have accomplished, and I cannot find it in myself to regret the time that has passed. We may no longer be young, but we are still here, healthy and happy and whole. 

Later that day, after Sean and I have shown the new stable hands around our modest, if rather successful, yard, someone knocks on our door. 

We’re having tea at the kitchen table, a habit I never grew out of and Sean never truly grew into. Sean and I exchange a glace, my teacup halfway to the tabletop, because we have no idea who it could be. Most of the islanders have no reason to visit the old odd Kendricks out by the northwestern cliffs. Our buyers aren’t due for another month, at the height of summer, when the dangers the _capaill_ pose are at their lowest. Breda isn’t expected until dinner—she’s helping her uncle train his new apprentice at the bakery today—and she never knocks, because she is too much like me in some ways, much to Sean’s amusement. 

I am the one to stand and open the door, because Sean’s knee has been paining him recently. 

It’s Peg Gratton, with a rather large satchel slung over one shoulder. I blink, and invite her in. 

“Puck,” she says warmly, because that’s another thing I never grew out of. Dory Maud used to tell me it was unbecoming for a grown woman to still answer to a childhood nickname, no matter the fact that the sisters refused to call me Kate to the end of their days; in response, I would tell her it was unbecoming for three sisters to have no last name, which usually shut her up for a bit. At least until she would start in on me for something new, an affectionate grin on her face. 

I smile, both at the memory and our guest, and say back, “Peg. You’re just in time for tea.” 

She joins Sean at the table as I close the door. I’m unsure as to how she got here, since there’s no sign of a car, or even a bike, but I don’t bother with asking. Peg has always liked to keep some secrets to herself, no matter how inane they may seem. 

Sean busies himself making Peg a cup of tea the way she always has it when she visits, and she pulls the satchel from her shoulder and places it beside her chair. I settle on my own chair between them and pick up my teacup again. Peg does the same, breathing in the steam and sighing it back out. 

If Sean and I are just starting to go gray, Peg is nearly white. I look at her hair—as curly and unruly as ever—and know that is what I have to look forward to. I wonder if Mum would have looked similar, and it has been long enough that the thought is bittersweet, rather than just bitter. 

“How can we help you?” I ask, once she has had a sip of her tea, because if I leave it up to her or Sean, we’ll be sitting here until the sun sets and rises again tomorrow morning. It’s not exactly surprising that she’s here so much as it’s unexpected: with Thomas gone nearly three years now and the shop in the hands of a converted mainlander who mostly knows what he’s doing, Peg has more time to visit now than she once did. But even then, we normally schedule visits ahead of time, when Sean or I are passing through on our way to Hastoway. 

Peg breathes out heavily through her nose. She says, “I have something to ask of you, Puck, if you’re willing.” 

Under the table, Sean’s hand finds mine. Our palms are equally calloused and worn from long years of building our life together. 

I nod. 

She puts down her teacup and opens the satchel, pulling out something I haven’t seen in decades. 

Actually, that’s untrue. I’ve seen her great feathered headdress every year that we’ve attended the festival, which has been nearly every year since I raced with the exceptions of when I went into labor with Breda the morning of the festival, and the year we gave Corr back to the sea. But I haven’t seen it so close since that day on the beach, when Peg used it to proclaim Thisby’s loyalties, though I didn’t realize it for what it was at the time. 

She hands it to me and I place it in my lap so I can run my fingers along the feathers, smoothing them down. When I glance up, Peg is looking at me fondly, and Sean is looking at Peg with the sharp sort of expression he usually reserves for uncooperative horses and the particularly abrasive buyers we tend to only do business with once. 

“I’ve gotten too old to play this role for Thisby,” she says, sighing again. “Truthfully, I should have passed this on a long time ago, and it was never really my right to begin with. But Thisby is changing, if slowly, and it’s time for someone new.” 

I feel myself go very still. 

“What are you asking?” Sean is the one who speaks, though it’s likely he already understands what I do not. He’s always been good at recognizing when I can’t get my mind and my tongue in line. 

Peg looks at me. When I place the headdress on the table, careful not to knock anything over, she takes my free hand in both of hers. I feel tethered by the two of them, but it is not an uncomfortable or uncommon sensation. 

“Puck, I’ve worn this mantle since I was a young woman, younger than Breda, but it was your mother’s right.” I meet her eyes, startled. I knew Mum followed the races more closely than Dad, but I never imagined she had been _that_ close to any part of them. Peg continues, “when she married Robert and he asked her to distance herself, she did.” 

If I were younger, I never would have believed it if someone told me my proud, fierce mum had given up anything for anyone, but I’m a mother myself now, and Sean’s wife in all but name. And before any of that, I was the oldest of a family of two, with a young brother that a part of me will always try to protect. I understand giving up more than you could think yourself capable of for those you love. 

Sean squeezes my hand. I squeeze back. 

“So…” I say, trying to think my way through it all. “You want me to take up the role.” 

Peg sips of her tea. Outside, a horse in one of the closer pastures whinnies. It might be Sorcha, Finndebar’s spirited, loud-mouth granddaughter, but Sean would know better than I. He’s always known the horses better. 

“I would like you to consider it,” Peg says at last. “It would be yours by tradition, but you aren’t required to. It is something that requires _conviction_.” 

I nod; in this, as in everything, Thisby will not tolerate uncertainty. 

Beside me, Sean looks out the wide kitchen windows, turning away. He will not try to make the decision for me, or even influence my thoughts one way or another, that I am sure of. But I am also sure of the fact that we’re both thinking of my October on the sands, so long ago. We’re thinking of last week, when Fáel threw me and I couldn’t get up without the help of one of the grooms. My hip still aches, and we were lucky it wasn’t worse. 

In the end I say, “I appreciate it, Peg, but I’m afraid I’m too old to start something like this now.” 

She nods once and threads her hand into her hair, but she isn’t frustrated. We moved past that years ago. 

Sean jostles my side and darts his eyes from mine to the window. I look and see Breda making her way down the lane, a basket tucked under one arm that’s undoubtedly full of burnt items from Finn’s new apprentice. Either she’s early or we’ve been at this table longer than I would have thought, but regardless, the sight of her lights something in me that likely should have been obvious from the start. 

Breda is uncompromising, brash, as much a part of the island as the _capaill_ —and undeniably her parents’ daughter. She may have a hand for baking, after years of working at her uncle’s side, but she had a hand for the horses even before then. She’s wild and reserved and can ride any horse given to her and she can handle an unruly man as well as she can a stubborn horse. 

She’s the best and worst of the both of us, and I’ve seen the way she’s always gazed at the _capaill_ when she thought we weren’t looking. 

She’s also an adult, with a home of her own and the beginnings of a family, and she’s on the cusp of what could be greatness, in the way only Thisby can make a person great, and the way only an islander could long to be great, if only we give her a nudge in the right direction. 

“Would you like to stay for dinner, Peg?” I ask. Peg smiles brightly, and I feel a twinge of guilt that perhaps we haven’t worked as hard as we could have to fold her into our family, these past few years. With Thomas and Beech both gone in their own ways, she’s likely lonelier than I imagined. “Perhaps,” I say, just as I hear my daughter begin to knock the mud from her boots, “you should ask Breda instead?” 

Peg nods just as Breda bursts in, a storm in her own right. 

Sean leans over and kisses my cheek. I kiss his temple before he can retreat all the way and he grins at me as he leans back in his chair, crows’ feet gathering around the corners of his eyes. 

Our time as the catalysts of change on this changing, changeless island is long over, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be others. If there is anything all my years have taught me, it is that there are always others. It is the way of the island, and the way of those who live here. Our days as titans of the races are over, but we can always help those who come next—those who step onto an ancient, blood-soaked rock and ride on ancient, blood-soaked sands—find their way.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! Comments and kudos are always appreciated, but never required.
> 
> Keep reading,  
> Skats


End file.
